Nitrophoto

Well, after spending Sunday doing what every other gear head wanted to do, watching three major motorsports events on the tube, it was clear to me that, The F1 race from Monoco  was really nothing more than conveyor belt racing. Two the Coke 600 was more like a super late model race and three surprisingly the Indy Car race was spectacular.

Has the Izod Indy Car promoters hit upon something with this very unique looking car? ( I still can not get used to it, but I am coming around.) Has Formula 1 just out teched themselves? Even though NASCAR has the Gen Six car which is the closest thing to the "stock cars" the sport represents, it appears they still have the same problems as the COT.

The Formula 1 race at the very picturesque circuit in the Principality of Monoco is one of those motor races which are steeped in tradition and pageantry and fanfare. It is a place where people do have more money than God. However, even with all the money the F1 teams spend each year, and that continues to rise, the racing is as I stated earlier, conveyor belt racing. No body passes any body and if you get two cars close together they seem to run into one another, break a one hundred thousand dollar nose piece or bend an upper suspension wish bone, and the car is retired.

The cars are cool, F1 races are a place for beautiful people to be seen, but the racing needs to get more exciting. The venues are in exciting and exodic locations. However,when the on air talent get excited when there are two passes for second place, well then it is time for a make over. Bernie Eccelstone, the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer for Formula One has made is gazillion dollars, and if he can take care of his latest scandal dealing with reporting paying a German banker 28 milliion pounds (British Sterling) in bribes. Maybe he could sit down with the manufactures to look at a way to make the racing a bit more competitive.  Teach the drivers not to run into one another when they get close together. That would be a good place to start.

The NASCAR race The Coke 600 held at Bruton Smith's Charlotte Motor Speedway had action, had drama, but one thing is that stock car racing is still being hampered by phenomenon organic to stock cars. The cars need to be in clean air to be fast on the 1.5 mile tracks which are predominate on the NASCAR schedule. Which means that the lead car has the best operating conditions, cars back in the pack in "dirty" air are not as capable of running fast as the car leading in clean air. We heard many times Sunday night, by drivers who said, I could get so far on restarts but once the cars got up to speed then that was as far as they could go because they could not get into clean air.

It gonna take some more massaging on these Cup cars to get the to be not so aero-dependent. I hope NASCAR does this, especially on the 1.5 mile tracks and larger.

The most exciting event was surprisingly enough was the Indy car race. A third of the field lead the race, and there were sixty-eight lead changes.  Are you kidding me, at an open-wheel Indy Car race. The race was exciting, for the entire event.  The cars still take some getting used to visually moreover, they allow for more close quarters racing. Which at the Brickyard meant just the most exciting Indy 500 in many,many years.

I think that many of us who love motorsports, were absolutely thrilled to see what happened at Indy, and I would hope that both NASCAR and Formula 1 take a page from Indy car and make the racing more competitive.